The Arab League’s tin-pot potentates had a good laugh at Syria’s expense this week when they dispatched “human-rights observers” to monitor the military crackdown that has killed more than 5,000 civilians since March.

The joke: They sent a Sudanese general widely believed to have played a key role in creating Sudan’s murderous janjaweed militias — the armies that have raped and pillaged their way through benighted Darfur.

It’s akin to sending an SS commander to investigate the Rape of Nanking; he’s more likely to appreciate the tradecraft than to try to stop the bloodletting.

And indeed, Gen. Mustafa al-Dabi got off to a predictable start this week, lauding the Syrian regime as “very cooperative” and calling the situation in the restive city of Homs “reassuring” — claiming in an interview that there was “quiet” in the city, even as gunfire rattled on.

That’s despicable, but what could Syrians expect?

Honesty from the Arab League?

Since the Arab delegation arrived, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has crafted a Potemkin peace — sending his tanks pirouetting down sidestreets and out of sight of the observers, even as his rooftop snipers continue to pick off civilians.

Assad signed an Arab League peace plan on Dec. 19 but has no intention of slowing his massacre.

He’s killed another 300 civilians since agreeing to the league program.

Not that the Arab League minds: It’s a dictators’ club, and its members aren’t very keen to see another one of their own bite the dust.

They’re not after peace, but quiet.

But it’s too late for either: The death toll in Syria is already far higher than it was in Libya when President Obama pestered NATO into an air campaign that ultimately took out Moammar Khadafy.

And as Syrian Army troops continue to defect and turn their tanks on Assad, things will get bloodier still — which makes Obama’s befuddlement here very troubling.

The administration is leaking word of its “preliminary” talks to consider options that might or might not be on the table.

Meaning, O & Co. seem not to know what to do.

It will be difficult to turn the events in Syria toward US advantage, but paralysis is not a policy.

If the US doesn’t help effect Assad’s ouster while promoting a stable peace there, the current Islamist ascendancy in Egypt might start looking good.